I am doing an evaluation of Load Testing tools and wanted to know if anybody has done comparison of Jmeter with Other Load Testing tools. My client is vry much aligned to use an open source tool, so it would be good if you people can share the advantages and disadvantages of using Jmeter as a load testing tool.

One more thing is important to note is that maximum of the applications where load testing needs to be acrried out is on the database side i.e. Message read, write, Database read and write etc.

I have got some questions for the evaluation to be acrried ot for Jmeter. It will be good if you plople can rate these points on the scale of 1 to 10.

1. Intuitive and easy to use for users new to Performance Testing Tools2. Record and Playback3. Easy to maintain test Scripts4. Fully customized editor with formats and colors for better readability5. All users can be queued to execute a specified action at the same time ( Synchronization Points)6. Automatic generation of summary load testing analysis reports7. Actions in a script can be iterated any specified number of times without programming or rerecording of thescript8. Load runs and groups of users within load runs can be scheduled to execute at different times9. Ability to have data-driven scripts that can use a stored pool of data10. Thread-based virtual user simulation11. Centralized load test controller12. Allows for reusing scripts from functional test suite13. Compatible with SSL recording14. Support for ERP/ CRM applications as SAP, Seibel etc15. Support for Protocols COM, EJB, RMI, .NET Remoting. Oracle Forms etc16. Support for Platforms: HP UX, Sun Solaris, Windows17. Monitors various tiers:Web server, database serv etc18. Ability to provide client-to-server response times 19. Ability to provide graphical results and export them to common formats20. Can there be concurrent usage for Controller21. Supports application deployed on CITRIX environment accessed via NFUSE connection 22. Technical Support23. Cost24. Does the tool provide a utility wherein the existing scripts in any other tool can be converted to new tool's